Client Satisfaction in Rural India for Primary Health Care – A Tool for Quality Assessment

Abstract

Introduction: The hospital market has today changed from a seller’s market to a buyers’ market, where the patient is all-important. One needs to understand the fact that patients do not flock to a hospital just because its services are cheap, but because of its good name and good image. Objective: To evaluate client satisfaction with the government approach in primary health care. Materials and Methods: Study design: Cross sectional study Sampling: Multistage sampling. Procedure: 1) The district was stratified into taluks 1 Primary Health Center and 1 Primary Health Unit or 1 Community Health Center (where there is a CHC) from each taluk was selected using random numbers. 2) Client satisfaction was determined by systematic random sampling of clients attending the basic health services Results: Client satisfaction in availability of service was above 90% in all services except in accident care where 30% were dissatisfied. Client satisfaction for facilities and equipments was good in all services except leprosy care and tuberculosis care where it was poor. Clients were mainly unhappy with the waiting time in all the services; in few services they expected speciality care like in child care and antenatal care. High risk care during delivery was not much appreciated. Other major problem was unavailability of the health care provider which led to dissatisfaction. Family planning services were graded excellent without any drawbacks. Except for few setbacks all the services had good satisfaction by majority of clients. Conclusion: Client satisfaction is good on a whole. Key words: Client satisfaction, primary health care, efficacy to treat, antenatal care, child care Key Message: The hospital market has today changed from a seller’s market to a buyers’ market, where the patient is all-important in that context we prioritize clients in primary health care too. Clients attending primary health care were mainly unhappy with the waiting time in all the services; in few services they expected speciality care as in child care and antenatal care. Other major problem was unavailability of the health care provider at night times which led to dissatisfaction. Family planning services were graded excellent by the clients